Reverse Osmosis Explained: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding How it Works

Reverse Osmosis Water Systems, The Basics

You may have already heard the buzz around water filtration and softening. You might already know how great it is for your water plumbing, your appliances, your clothing, and your health. You might have already heard about the issues with hard water or water with too much acidity, chlorine, or sulfur and the problems that come with each. If you have, then we’re willing to bet you’ve heard the words “reverse osmosis” before. You want to understand the process before buying something that uses it; that’s savvy. We’re only too happy to help, so here’s a guide for how reverse osmosis Houston, TX works. It’s just a bit of basic chemistry at work.

First Things First for Reverse Osmosis: What’s Osmosis?

To get an idea of reverse osmosis system in San Antonio and, it might help to understand osmosis first. It might sound familiar from grade school science class. Osmosis involves water moving through a semi-permeable membrane, which is a sort of filtration wall that only allows certain materials through. A semi-permeable membrane might allow water through but stop salt particles if they’re too big or the wrong composition to pass through. So, osmosis is a kind of transfer.

When osmosis happens, it’s because there’s an uneven concentration of particles dissolved in the water on both sides of the membrane. For instance, the water on one side might have more salt than the water on the other. If that imbalance is there, the water is going to pass through the membrane from the less salty side to the saltier side. The water keeps transferring until both sides have an equal salt concentration relative to the water amount. One side might have more water and salt, but it doesn’t matter as long as the ratio of water to salt is the same on both sides. That’s osmosis. It’s how the cells in our bodies take in water.

How Reverse Osmosis actually Works?

So, with that understanding of osmosis, you know what it means for the reverse to happen. Instead of water moving towards a higher concentration of soluble particles, it moves away from them. The water instead moves towards the side of the membrane that has less particles in it, passing through a filtering membrane that blocks the particles from following. That’s how reverse osmosis removes contaminants from your water when you have a water filter.

Now, this isn’t what water normally does. The natural process is for water to try and balance itself out across the membrane. Our water systems reverse the process with the help of a resin bed. Here’s a bit more science: a lot of particles have an electric charge, and that charge can be positive or negative, same as a magnet. And just like a magnet, negative and positive particles will attract. Our water systems contain a resin bed that’s full of particles with one charge. Those particles pull out the contaminants in your water, which have the opposite charge as the water passes through the chamber with the resin bed. Eventually, the resin bed is full of contaminants, but that’s not an issue with the right filtration system: The system can clean itself and just keep on going afterwards.

So, the short version of reverse osmosis is that the system uses a bit of pressure and particles with an electric charge to pull contaminants out while pushing the water away from them through the filter membrane. If you’re looking to get one, then contact us today. We offer our professional plumbing services in different areas of Texas including no salt soft water system, reverse osmosis in Kerrville and multi stage water filter.